


Stay With Me

by marauder_in_warblerland



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-06 10:36:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1854955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauder_in_warblerland/pseuds/marauder_in_warblerland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flight attendant!Kurt is having a little fun on his regular run, and Blaine’s wishing that he’d just stayed in coach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Blaine was excited about the upgrade, at least at first.

Getting bumped up to first class seemed like a remarkable burst of good luck. There had to be some logical reason why five passengers suddenly couldn’t catch their flight from New York to Salt Lake City, but they probably also wouldn’t care if Blaine took their absence as a karmic gift. Three days in the land of salt, Mormons, and his aunt Shirley wouldn’t bring him anything but headaches, so he was happy to accept a little cosmic payback.

It sounded like fun, that is, until his stunning flight attendant wouldn’t stop bending over. 

Slowly.

Usually, Blaine wouldn’t describe the (valuable and very difficult) work of a flight attendant as a performance, but this man is definitely putting on a show.

It started with the safety announcements.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he’d heard over the intercom, and the male voice sounded like laughter. “I’m going to have to ask you to pretend to pay attention for a just a few moments while we explain the safety features of this metal tube that we’re shooting into space.”

He couldn’t even see where the voice was coming from, but that voice had Blaine’s attention, and the attention of most of the cabin.

“Please watch as my stunning colleagues, Santana and Brittany, demonstrate how to remain alive on this four hour flight. To properly fasten your seatbelt, slide the flat end into the buckle. To release, lift up on the buckle, and if you have questions about how to operate a seatbelt, please explain how you’ve managed to function for the last 50 years of international modernity. Position your seatbelt tight across your hips, so that the person next to you has to give you a lap dance to get to the bathroom. No need for embarrassment folks. We’ve all been there.”

Blaine snorted into his hand and, yes, finally located the mysterious speaker commandeering a headset at the front of the plane. He wasn’t reading from anything that Blaine could see. Instead, he was looking out into the crowd as if he were the opening act at Harrods.

“Everyone gets a little door prize with your admission ticket on this beautiful August day,” the voice continued. “In the seat pocket in front of you, you will find a fascinating safety information card along with any number of other disgusting gifts your seat’s previous host chose to leave behind. Enjoy. That used chewing gum is all for you. In the highly unlikely event that the captain lands us near a hot tub, everyone gets their own teeny, weeny Southwest bikini. One size fits all. Please enjoy Santana, Brittany, and Jake’s demonstrations of how to safely fasten your flotation devices. I know I will.”

As he talked, two of the three other flight attendants slipped the yellow floaties over their heads and tried to keep a straight face. The blonde one in the middle grinned and posed with the inflation tube like she was being photographed for an airline-themed pin-up poster.

“At this time, please be sure that you have your belongings completely shoved under the seat in front of you, leaving no space for your legs or knees. That’s how you know you’ve done it right. This is a no smoking flight. Being caught tampering with the lavatory smoke detectors will incur a two-thousand dollar fine, and if you’d wanted to pay that much for your flight, you should have flown with someone else. If at any time you feel the urge to light a cigarette, please let us know and we will show you to the nearest exit. Really - it’s no problem at all.

We do not anticipate a loss of cabin pressure. Otherwise, we would not have shown up for work today. However, if needed, passenger airbags will be released from the space above your seat. To start the flow of oxygen, simply insert one dollar for the first minute and seventy-five cents for every minute thereafter.”

The flight attendant cracked a wide smile at his last line, apparently tickled at his own joke, and for the first time Blaine caught his eye. As the passengers laughed, half at the joke and half at his team’s clowning, the speaker raised his eyebrows as if to say, _not bad, right?_ Blaine could only shoot back a dorky thumbs-up, but it was worth it for the speaker’s giddy grin.

“If you’re traveling with small children,” he continued. “We’re sorry. Please put on your own mask before helping the child with the greatest earning potential. All in all, just do everything we say and no one will get hurt.” He smirked out at the full flight in a stunning impersonation of an innocent shark.

“That’s it for my little song and dance, folks. Please, sit back and relax, or sit up and be tense. It’s all the same to me. I’m Kurt Hummel, your lead flight attendant and cheap entertainment for the evening. Seriously folks, if you need anything at all, just let us know . . . as soon as we arrive in Salt Lake City. Welcome aboard.” 

He steps out for the last line, whipped off his headset with a flourish, and dropped into a bow that belonged in Carnegie Hall. It would all have been terribly over the top if the entire plane hadn’t been clapping and shouting his name. Blaine flew a lot and he had never seen anything like this. He had never seen _anyone_ like this. Kurt wasn’t even Blaine’s usual type (not enough blonde), but this performance— for what must be the world’s most difficult audience— was breathtaking. Thankfully, it didn’t stop after takeoff.

After the eye contact during the pre-flight safety demonstration, Kurt seemed to hone in on him like a drone. Suddenly, when he started handing out free things (and there were so many free things in first class, _oh my god_ ) half of his banter was in Blaine’s direction.

As he handed pretzels to the two teenage girls across the aisle, he carefully dropped the tiny bags into their palms and quipped, “You’re probably too young to know this, but they used to have us give out warm nuts in the first class.” When one of the girls laughed, he smiled back. “I know, right? I couldn’t say it with a straight face. Of course, I couldn’t say much with a straight face, and in this line of work that isn’t usually a problem.” The line sailed right over both of their heads, but Blaine was right there to catch it. He laughed under his breath, just as Kurt glanced up and caught him out of the corner of his eye. It was nothing, just a stupid joke, but Blaine could have sworn that Kurt’s smile got a little wider.

If it was flirting--and it sure felt like flirting--Blaine wasn’t used to pinging anyone’s gaydar this quickly. On the other hand, he also wasn’t used to hiding his laughter while ordering an in-flight soda. It was all a little bit overwhelming. Kurt kept stopping by to ask if he needed anything. _Need a top up on that Diet Coke, sailor?_ he said with a smile, and Blaine tried not to grin back like Kurt just complimented his shoes.

Now, he’s been bending over in Blaine’s line of sight for nearly a count of ten and Blaine isn’t even trying to look away. The elderly woman in aisle three must have dropped something under the seat in front of her, because she keeps directing his hands, but even that is not enough of an excuse for that position in those pants. At this rate, he really needs to ask for a complimentary blanket.

“Are these yours, ma’am?” Kurt finally emerges, triumphant, beaming and holding a pair of reading glasses out in front of him like a trophy. His stunning, swoop of a hairdo has somehow managed to defy gravity and remains entirely unmoved by his time spent upside down. It’s not surprising really. Blaine traces the delicate wave with his eyes as it slips up over Kurt’s forehead and then back down to where its owner is looking Blaine directly in the face.

 _Oh for goodness sake._ If Kurt looked like he was having fun before, now he looks like he just won the Preakness without a horse. Blaine feels the telltale heat creeping up his cheeks and down his neck, until Kurt mercifully goes back to comforting the woman with the wayward glasses. He disappears into the front of the cabin to find a special kind of club soda, and Blaine slumps down into his seat with an undignified _whump._ He can’t do this much longer. The flight is nearly four hours long and he’s starting to feel the strain of holding his breath only one hour in. Apparently, praying to avoid embarrassment is also a solid abdominal workout. 

While Kurt’s away, Blaine considers watching the other flight attendants. He’s never flown first class on Southwest before, so maybe this is just an airline policy. All the flight attendants probably try to make everyone feel _special_ during the flight, just to ensure that their customers come back for more. It sounds ridiculous, even in his mind, but no more ridiculous than the fact that he can’t stop thinking about the tiny sliver of skin that was visible between Kurt’s shirt and the back of his pants when he bent over.

Blaine adjusts his tie and wills his body to _calm down_.

He’s flirted with strangers, but this is different. This is a simmering heat, low in his stomach, which turns up to high when Kurt gets within five feet. Lord, eye contact is apparently enough to boil him from the inside out and, whatever they may say about first class, it isn’t large. No matter where he turns, there’s no mistaking this wave of heat that has him sweating through his collar and pressing half-moon nail-marks into his armrests.

Blaine wants Kurt. He wants him more than anyone he has ever wanted in his life. The next time Kurt comes by, Blaine wants to run his hands up under Kurt’s shirt until he can feel the taut dip of his waist. He wants to cup Kurt’s ass in both hands until the man pushes back into Blaine’s palms and begs him to _go on please go on_. Most of all, he never wants Kurt to stop talking. Every time he laughs, it feels like foreplay.

In the airline uniform, Blaine can hardly see the shape of Kurt’s body, but he can see Kurt’s neck, and that’s enough to allow a torrent of NC-17 images to flood through his mind. Glancing to the side, he pulls his bag over himself like a make-shift blanket, slips one hand underneath it, and presses the heel of his palm into his lap-- hard. If he thinks about pale, jiggly lady parts right this instant, he might be able to hold himself in check, but he can’t keep his mind off of Kurt’s long thin fingers around the microphone, and how strong they might be wrapped around another—

“Everyone holding on okay over here?” Kurt drops into the seat at his side and Blaine just about flies out of his skin. The _argh_ that comes out of his mouth sounds more dinosaur than human, but at least he manages to keep his bag from falling off of his lap. Better to just be an idiotic dinosaur man, than an idiotic dinosaur man with a raging hard-on.

“Excuse me if this sounds blunt,” Blaine sputters, over Kurt’s laughter, “but where the hell did you come from?” In his distraction, he hadn’t even seen his seat partner get up. 

“The back of the plane,” Kurt smiles, jerking his thumb back at the economy section. “You do know that we have seats back there too?”

“And the man who was here?” Blaine asks, gesturing towards Kurt’s seat with his free hand.

“In the bathroom,” Kurt nods quietly, like he’s imparting state secrets. “And I wouldn’t worry about him coming back anytime soon. I don’t think that all the little whiskey bottles agreed with him.”

“Oh.” Blaine looks down and carefully slips his hand out from underneath his bag. “That’s nice.”

“Isn’t it?” Kurt gives Blaine a considered glance and then settles back into his borrowed seat with a wiggle. “I have to get off of my feet for a few minutes before we start the in-flight entertainment, and this seemed like as good a place as any.”

“Well, in that case, I feel honored by your presence.”

Kurt smirks in Blaine’s direction. “As you should. There’s a gentleman in steerage who offered me a lousy bottle of wine if I would talk at him until we got to Salt Lake City.”

“Really?” Blaine drops the bag in surprise and thanks the gods that his body has decided to play along.

“No. Not really, but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone did.” Kurt rolls his eyes at the ceiling without any real malice. “This is an airline. We really do get all kinds, and I’ve seen weirder.”

“It didn’t actually seem weird,” Blaine says, leaning back so that they can both talk into the same empty space in front of their seats. “I just thought he could have used some subtlety, and better wine.”

“Who? My imaginary man?”

Blaine shrugs and smiles at the seat back in front of him. “So, how long have you been a flight attendant then, if you’re such a wizened veteran of the weird?”

“I’m not a flight attendant.”

“Excuse me?” Blaine shoots a look at the side of Kurt’s head.

“I mean, I don’t really think of myself as a flight attendant. I am actually a performer in New York City and this is what you might call my day job.” 

“Ah,” Blaine nods towards Kurt’s profile. “I took you literally and thought this flight was about to get much more interesting. _Alert the captain and crew!_ we would hear. _The flight has been taken over by a madman pretending to be a funny steward_!” 

Kurt smiles back, but it’s distant. “As tempting as that sounds, I usually restrain my impersonations to performances on the ground. I happen to be between shows at the moment, through no fault of my own, but I have an audition on Monday.”

Blaine glances down at his phone and then back up at Kurt’s face. “Monday? As in tomorrow? Aren’t you going in the wrong direction?”

“Absolutely,” Kurt sighs. I have a whole eight hours to get my beauty rest in Salt Lake City before I hop on a flight back home. It’s a glamorous life.”

Blaine wants to say something about how Kurt doesn’t need rest to be beautiful, but it all sounds corny, even in his head. Instead, he raises one hand and gestures for Kurt to go on. “So, tell me. What’s the audition for? Is it anything I’d know about?”

“I don’t know what you’d know,” Kurt replies, with a sly smile, “but I can promise that this audition is for a shitty and completely forgettable part in an off-off-off-never-heard-of-Broadway play. If I got the part, I’d be playing some random chorus boy who says “oh really?” or “golly gee!” and then runs off stage. It pays though, and I have done a few other parts that were worth the time.”

Blaine cocks an eyebrow and waits.

“How about _Book of Mormon_? You heard of that one?”

“You were in The Book of fucking Mormon?!” Blaine almost flies out of his seat and grabs for Kurt’s closest arm. “You dropped that like it was nothing! I was expecting you to say something embarrassing, like _Rocky: The Musical_.”

Kurt just looks down at his claimed arm and giggles until Blaine starts breathing again. “It was just the chorus part in the traveling production, but I got to understudy for Elder McKinley and my dad got to see me perform in a Broadway musical, so by default, I think that remains my high point. There’ve been a few other little things, but I like to think that my best parts are still to come.” He tilts his head in Blaine’s direction, “And what about you? Is New York home?”

“For now,” Blaine says, slowly.

“Okay, so what does home mean to you Mr . . .”

He trails off and Blaine feels like an idiot all over again. “Anderson! I’m Blaine Anderson, now from New York.” He sticks out his hand awkwardly, like a well-trained third-grader, and Kurt takes it, laughing.

“Actually, I already knew that.” Kurt looks more than a little sheepish. “We have the names for all of the first class passengers, but I wasn’t going to say it before you’d offered. I didn’t want you thinking I had superpowers, other than sneaking up on passengers without warning.”

“Very thoughtful of you. . . Kurt?” He nods and Blaine goes on. “I’m actually a performer too. Small world.” He points to a pin on his bag next to the strap. “NYADA?”

“Yes!” Now it’s Kurt’s turn to almost bounce out of his chair. “You’re a NYADA boy! I knew it.” 

“Knew what?” Blaine’s lost, but he likes making Kurt grin from ear to ear. Now if he could only figure out what he’d done.

“I knew that you were one of us, silly. I knew that you were a performer the minute I started doing the announcements.” Kurt beams like a happy detective unmasking his latest criminal. “You watch like an actor, like you aren’t sure if you want to clap so that we feel loved or jump up on our makeshift airplane stage because you want to feel loved too.”

Blaine gapes for a second and then blushes down at his lap. “You got me. I, Blaine Anderson, am an attention whore.” He doesn’t do it on purpose, but the line comes out sounding like his brother. Cooper started calling him an attention whore before he knew what the word meant and the label stuck until college.

“Please, Blaine,” Kurt leans back and stares down his nose in mock indignation. “We are dedicated entertainers. It’s all in the terminology. A stewardess is not the same as a flight attendant, a pile of raw fish isn’t the same as tuna sashimi, and a fling isn’t the same as a booty call.” He takes in the surprise spreading across Blaine’s face and smiles, softly. “Sorry for the lecture. Once, when I was saying some truly terrible things to myself, a friend told me that language matters, and I took it to heart. It shapes the world, so why not give the world a shape you might actually like, right?”

With that, Kurt slips out of his borrowed seat, just as its owner appears at the end of aisle. As Blaine watches, the plane bounces and Kurt rides the turbulence like a surfer riding an old, friendly wave. It isn’t so much grace as a familiar ease; he might as well have been standing on solid concrete. It’s mesmerizing. When Kurt turns back, he’s back in full flight attendant mode. “Blaine,” he says, eyes still dancing, “it was a pleasure taking up a few minutes of your time. In a little bit, I’ll be back with a wide array of cocoa cola beverage options, okay?”

Blaine nods and murmurs “okay,” more to himself than to what Kurt’s said. Before he can do anything more than continue to bob his head like a mechanical bird, Kurt slips down the aisle and into the tiny airplane kitchen. Blaine would like to think that given another minute or so, he could have come up with a witty response, something like “the pleasure was all mine” or even “I look forward to it!” Anything would have been better than stammering like a little boy meeting Mickey Mouse in Disney World, but he’s not sure that any amount of time would have made him feel less like he had just been run over by a train.

Why can’t he be cool and go back to reading his book like a functional adult? Instead, all he can think about are the words and the banter and the wit and the pull of Kurt’s uniform across his shoulders, and _god_ he’s so turned on he might just come in his pants in the middle of the first class cabin. The passengers on his right and left are all either asleep or lost in their computers, but he thinks they might notice if he started moaning and bucking up into his laptop bag.

He would never let that happen. He’s not interested in getting arrested for public indecency, but the possibility is so very real. If he listens to the tendrils of heat coiling through his gut, he could probably get himself off just by thinking about the way that Kurt licked his lips as he walked down the aisle. Shit, he hasn’t had this little control over “little Blaine” since he first discovered his high school soccer team’s fine tradition of shirtless Tuesday practices. That had been one hell of a find for a freshman, but he’d also been hard and raw for weeks. They could have taught the quantum force of monkey farts in science that month and he wouldn’t have noticed.

As soon as the fasten seat belts sign turns off, he stands, bag positioned over his lap, and power-walks to the lavatory. It isn’t dignified, but no one’s watching and, as it is, he can hardly lock the door before yanking down his pants. He’s aching— aching to be touched, to have soft hands tugging the breath out of his body one stroke at a time. He props one hand against the wall behind the toilet, pants around his knees, and imagines that the knuckles pressing against the vein under his cock aren’t his own.

Perhaps he should be worried by how easily he can imagine the flex of Kurt’s hands. They’ve only just met and he can already picture Kurt on his knees, one hand slipping up and down Blaine’s cock, while the other unzips his own pants. He should be concerned by how easily his mind fills in details— the three buttons undone at Kurt’s collar, the flex of his bicep, and the curl of his hair from above—but the image is too perfect for questions.

Kurt, his Kurt, jerks once, twice, three times, smirking as Blaine’s cock pumps into his fist. God, he looks so proud of himself. Then, without warning, he sinks down over the head, tongue licking softly at the slit while his hand pumps up and down the shaft. Blaine feels himself throb between Kurt’s full lips as the man between his knees opens his mouth into a wide, pornographic O and takes him down as far as he can go.

When he hears a soft, stuttered moan, Blaine can’t tell if it’s out loud or in his imagination. Either way, he’s never been so thankful for the roar of airplane engines, because he can’t stop.

Suddenly, Kurt is behind him too, running one hand up the back of his shirt, along the length of his spine, and using the other to position his cock along the cleft of Blaine’s ass. His imaginary Kurt must be packing lube—smart boy— because he can just slide between Blaine’s trembling cheeks as though they’re both soaking wet. While one Kurt pushes himself slowly and deliberately along Blaine’s ass, the other is still bobbing his head as he sucks down Blaine’s cock and twists his hand at the base.

He’s everywhere.

They pump, front and back, and Blaine feels heat running through his body like wildfire. It licks through his veins and down into his groin where it pools until he’s seeing spots of light behind his eyes. The Kurt between his legs peeks up, cock still between his lips, and the smile in the corners of his eyes looks like a challenge. He licks one long stripe up the underside of Blaine’s cock until he reaches the head and suckles at the leaking tip, and Blaine’s coming—hunched over and moaning—into his own hand.

For a minute, he’s not sure he can remember his own name.

“In just a minute, the pilot will switch on the fasten seat belts sign as we prepare for our descent into Salt Lake City. Please be sure that you have handed any garbage to the flight attendants moving throughout the cabin and that all of your belongings are properly stowed under the seat in front of you.” The voice of one of the female fight attendant echoes through the cabin and he is suddenly brilliantly aware of being half naked, post-coital, and very alone in an airplane bathroom.

It’s not that he hasn’t masturbated before. It might have even happened in the campus bathrooms— just that one time—but he’s never turned someone he just met into his own private dance partner. Usually, he fantasizes about someone he’s dated or a random face from actual porn. This in-the-middle place is confusing, and it doesn’t help that his gorgeous and very real fantasy man is probably serving soda to children on the other side of the bathroom wall. 

Blaine hastily pulls up his pants and cleans off his hands, pointedly ignoring the blotchy patches of red along his neck and the sweat along his hairline. He looks like a mess, but with a few splashes of water his groggy expression could be mistaken for motion sickness— if you weren’t looking too closely. When he sees curls slipping out of his gelled temples, he resists the urge to give himself a mental dressing down. Urges are natural, he repeats, but now he has to get back to his seat without looking like a model of public perversion.

Blaine peeks out of the bathroom and slips back to his seat, boneless and giddy. Lo and behold, his seat mate is so sound asleep that he doesn’t move when Blaine climbs over his lap, and no one on either side looks like they give a rat’s behind where he’s been.

Blaine bites his lip and laughs under his breath. _Attention whore, indeed._ It might be nice to live in a fantasy world where people notice his solo sex life, but luckily he lives in reality where exactly no one cares. The flight attendants are still collecting trash, the babies are still crying in aisle 16, and he still has a few minutes to read before they finally touch down in Utah. He reaches down for the copy of _The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_ buried in his bag, and pats at the loose hairs at the back of his neck. Everyone is just going about their business, but he still feels unsettled, as though no matter how much he fixes his clothes he’s never going to completely—

“Feel better?” Kurt appears at his side, a half-empty bag of trash in one hand. He leans against the chair with Blaine’s sleeping companion and smiles slowly, like a lazy cat in the sun. “I always find that it helps to move around a little during a flight. Otherwise,” he shoots a glance down at Blaine’s lap and then back up, “I can get so darned stiff.” He straightens his back, eyes never leaving Blaine’s stunned face, and walks away towards the cockpit, hips swaying in time with the rhythm of the engine beating at his back.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Apparently, unexpected perks come with the drinks in first class.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. So far, everything he’d known from airline travel had been turned up to eleven, and then some. Instead of a foul-smelling pillow, he got a stack of blankets, and his bag of peanuts came with his own heated towelettes for after-snack cleanup. Even after sitting in a pile on his tray while he ate, the little towels were still warm and soft, and not nearly enough to calm the animals doing a tap dance in his stomach. It had been thirty minutes since Kurt disappeared into the kitchen and Blaine still felt like a human live wire.

“Feel better?” Kurt had asked, and short of charades, there was almost nothing he could have done that would have been more ambiguous. “Feel better” could mean acceptance. “Feel better” could mean judgment. “Feel better” could mean absolutely anything, and so, in true Blaine Anderson fashion, he was going slowly out of his mind.

The craziest part was that it did not matter. For Kurt Hummel, “Feel better?” could have meant “Please marry me in a field full of wild daisies” and it still would mean nothing once the plane was on the ground. He would go one way, Kurt would go the other, and they’d still be nothing more than two frustrated theater boys in a city full of frustrated theater boys.

Blaine tapped his heel in an uneven beat under his chair and tried not to bang his knee on the seat in front of him. He’d already gotten a dirty look from a father holding a sleeping toddler, and didn’t want to tempt any wrath, but Kurt could still walk back through the first class cabin at any minute and that possibility required something stronger than a bag of peanuts.

When one of the female flight attendants came through and quietly asked, “Would anyone care for a drink? This is the final call before we start our descent into Salt Lake City,” he nodded, violently, and asked for two fingers of whatever whiskey they had on hand. The flight attendant bit her lip and shuffled off into the kitchen, where Blaine could swear that he heard her laughing. _Terrific,_ he thought. _Now I’m entertaining airline employees I don’t even know. By the time I fly back to New York on Monday, I’ll probably have the guards at the security checkpoint snickering under their breath._

A different flight attendant bounced back down the aisle with his drink and an utterly guileless smile. This time it was the blonde one and she looked genuinely delighted to see him again. “Here’s your drink, sir!” she chirped, dropping a glass with at least four fingers of whiskey onto his tray. “And your unicorn sent this too. Please enjoy your intoxication!” Next to his glass, she dropped a folded piece of paper and spun into a turn before he could ask where on earth he had acquired a unicorn.

If “unicorn” was some kind of flight attendant code, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what it meant. Unless— he paused over his drink and glanced up at the open space that led to the kitchen—could _Kurt_ be his unicorn? Blaine plucked the paper from the tray and unfolded it low in his lap, like porn. He skimmed the hand-written lines and then coughed in surprise.

Apparently, in first class, whiskey comes with a flashback to seventh grade.

 

 

Blaine presses the paper into his lap and slaps his other hand across his mouth to keep from laughing out loud. It’s Kurt. It has to be Kurt, and yet he can’t imagine the Kurt he just met, even the earnest Kurt who cared about words that matter, composing this little note on the cramped countertops of the airplane kitchen. 

He glances back up at the entryway that had been empty just a minute before, and this time he can make out the side of a face and a shoulder looking away from the cabin. At first, he thinks that Kurt’s coming back, maybe to tease him about the note, but then he realizes that Kurt isn’t moving and that he isn’t even in the doorway, not really. The kitchen space on the plane was built in silver, with a bright metallic finish, and it’s only Kurt’s reflection that’s visible from the first class cabin. The real Kurt is still back there in the alcove where he doesn’t think that anyone can see him.

Blaine knows that he should look away. It’s automatically creepy if Kurt doesn’t know he’s being watched, but there’s something in his eyes that takes Blaine’s breath away.

He looks . . . young.

The flirty arch in his eyebrows has been replaced with a deep furrow, right between his eyes, and he’s slowly worrying the corner of one lip between his teeth. From Blaine’s distance, Kurt doesn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular so much as staring into space and waiting, like a schoolboy who desperately wants to ask about his final grade. In that moment, Kurt looks just as confused and anxious as Blaine feels. He can imagine the man in the reflection writing a mash note and sending it out with his perkiest colleague, because this man is undeniably human. If Kurt the flight attendant had charisma sparkling from his fingertips, this quiet Kurt has a palpable past, as though he could once have been broken.

Blaine’s knee stills under his tray table, and he downs his (vile) whiskey in a single shot. It burns all the way down his throat and into his too-empty stomach, but Blaine isn’t in any place to feel it. He rolls the empty glass between his palms and stares at the space where Kurt’s reflection used to be. He could fill out the note and send it back with his compliments, but Blaine’s always been a romantic at heart. Perhaps, this could use a more . . . human touch.

**************

While the other passengers grab their bags and inch their way out of the plane, Blaine watches his whiskey-fueled confidence die a slow and painful death.

Kurt’s hustling around the exit, whipping from task to task like a machine, and apparently his transition from performer to human being and then back to performer hasn’t made him any less intimidating. In fact, Blaine’s even more terrified that he’s somehow inevitably going to fuck this up. It’s not like it would be the first time. Blaine knows that he has a way of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, particularly when he opens his mouth and lets words come tumbling out.

When the aisle is finally clear, Blaine takes a deep breath, pulls his bag out from under the seat, and tries to walk down the aisle like a person for whom this isn’t completely foreign. Today, on Southwest Airlines, he decides, Blaine Anderson is a suave international traveler who propositions attractive men without having an aneurism.

As he walks towards the exit, he slows to a crawl and, suddenly, all he can think of is Han Solo’s order to Chewbacca to “I don’t know . . . fly casual.” Blaine snorts into his hand and watches in horror as Kurt’s eyes shoot up from where he’d been taking notes on a clipboard. So much for suave.

“Hey!” Blaine lifts his free hand and stutters through his growing blush. “I got— I mean— I don’t—” He rubs the back of his neck with the same hand and takes another breath. “Whatdidyouhaveinmind?” The question comes out less as a cute reminder, and more as one, long word in a pitch only audible to dogs.

Blaine considers turning around and finding a way to dig himself out of the back of the plane, when Kurt chirps back a loud “Okay sir! Thank you sir! If you’ll just step outside into the gated area, I’ll be happy to help you with your concern in just one minute!” He’s speaking too forcefully for a two-person conversation, but his eyes say, “Do not question me, or I will cut you,” and Blaine doesn’t want to get cut.

As he passes by and out the door— walk casual, Blaine— Kurt leans in and hisses into his ear, “Nicely done, James Bond.” Blaine would be embarrassed, but the jibe feels intimate, like a caress down the side of his neck. He breaks into a wide grin and just about bounces down the jetway.

Blaine reads and rereads every city name on the list of arrivals and departures until Kurt appears at the gate entrance, roller bag in hand. He watches out of the corner of his eye as the three other flight attendants leave in a pack of chatter and waving hands, but as suddenly as they appear they’re gone, and it’s just Blaine and a man he hardly knows.

“Has any ever told you that you are incredibly bad at being stealthy?” Kurt asks, leaning on his bag.

“Mmmm,” Blaine ducks his head, ruefully. “As a matter of fact, they have.”

“Oh good, because you really suck.”

Blaine closes his eyes and laughs. When he opens his eyes, ready to be brilliant, all he sees is Kurt’s back as he walks down the terminal.

After several paces, Kurt pauses and looks back over his shoulder. “I would assume that you’re coming with me,” he calls gently, and keeps walking without checking to make sure that Blaine’s on his trail. It’s obnoxious. It’s infuriating, and there’s no way that Blaine isn’t going to catch up.

He glances at the gate attendant, who is pointedly not looking in their direction, and then power walks in Kurt’s wake. When he catches up, he glances at Kurt’s slight smile in profile and falls in line, one step behind.

They pass a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and a store that sells nothing but travel pillows before Blaine breaks. “Excuse me,” he says, tapping Kurt on the shoulder. “Not to be difficult, but where are we going?”

Kurt looks back and holds up one finger, as if to say “Just a minute.” His eyes add, “You impatient child.”  It isn’t until they step onto the moving walk that Kurt turns to answer out loud.

“Well Blaine,” he smiles, crossing his arms and leaning back to let other walkers pass by. “I got the impression that we had a certain . . . rapport on the plane, and I think that at least some parts of you agree with me." 

Blaine glares across the moving walk, but he doesn’t disagree. The man has a point. “So,” Kurt goes on, “I thought that we might use this time to get to know each other better, maybe grab a bite to eat at the Sushi Hut or take in a round of mini golf. . .”

“This airport has a mini golf course?” His mom’s going to want to know about that.

“No, Blaine.” Kurt smirks, eyebrows raised. “This airport does not have a mini golf course.” He cocks his head, and Blaine just about falls off of the end of the moving walk.

Oh. _OH._

He looks up again, from the not-moving ground, to find that Kurt’s already stepped onto the next walkway and is laughing gently into his hand.

“So I might be a little bit gullible,” Blaine says, between breaths when he catches up.

“You might,” Kurt nods.

“But to be fair,” Blaine says, “mini golf sounds like fun.”

“More fun that what we’re actually going to be doing?” Kurt arches an eyebrow as two men in camo pants squeeze past. “Because if so, we should talk. The itinerary might still have some wiggle room.”

“No, that won’t be necessary.” Blaine looks into those dancing eyes and smiles. “I’m sure that whatever you had in mind will be more than enough _fun_.”

“And wiggling.” Kurt grins, and it takes every ounce of Blaine’s self control not to snort out loud. “You know you were thinking it.”

“Of course I was thinking it! Small children were thinking it, but I didn’t say it!” Blaine’s too busy thinking about Kurt and wiggling.

“Because you’re so subtle?”

“Because I’m so subtle.”

Kurt hums in something like agreement as they step off of the moving walk and back into the crowd weaving through the A terminal.

“You really do have an audition tomorrow, right?”

“I do.” Kurt moves through the crowd like he’s cutting butter and Blaine’s mystified. He’s never seen someone make congestion look sexy.

“In that case,” Blaine leans into Kurt’s space and tries to catch his eye. “Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but are you sure this is how you want to spend your time?” Kurt’s head whips around as he walks, eyes narrowed in confusion. “Don’t get me wrong,” Blaine explains. “I am very, very, incredibly on board for . . . not mini golf, but I’ve also been on a few auditions and they don’t get any easier when you haven’t slept.” As Blaine talks, mouth running a mile a minute, Kurt’s eyes slowly relax. By the time they pass into the next terminal, he looks almost touched.

“That’s really sweet, but I think it might actually help to, um, release tension?” Kurt looks down at the ground and for the first time, he seems genuinely embarrassed. “I— I wasn’t entirely kidding when I said the thing about travel and moving around . . .”

Blaine raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, so the stiffness part was because you’re about as subtle as a tire iron to the head, but the rest of it still holds.” Kurt looks away, biting his lip. “I do think I could use a some help _relaxing_ if I’m going to get any sleep on the ride back.”

“I think I can help with that.” Blaine smiles towards Kurt’s profile and after a beat, Kurt smiles back.

Kurt doesn’t say anything, but between their bodies, he lets his free hand swing until it just brushes against the side of Blaine’s wrist. For anyone walking by, it would have looked like nothing— the kind of accidental touch that happens between careless strangers— but Blaine felt the intention in waves. For a second, the crowded terminal could have been empty, leaving just Kurt and Blaine and a single point of careful contact. Kurt must be able to feel his pulse racing as he thinks about what they’re doing and where they’re going and—

“Kurt? Where exactly are we going?” Blaine leans in, scanning the terminal for obvious clues. “Does this airport have a hotel?” His voice drops to a whisper. “Does it have beds?”

Kurt doesn’t hide his smirk as he whispers back, “Sadly no— no hotels— but,” he peeks back in a conspiratorial smile, “have you been here before?” Blaine shakes his head and Kurt’s smile widens to gleeful grin. “Then I suppose you’ve never heard of the Jazz Room?” 

****************

The Jazz Room, as it’s labeled in an austere white and beige sign outside the door, is apparently a single white-walled room off of the D-terminal, with little more than two La-Z-Boy recliners, a desk, and an endless loop of Kenny G and Michael Bublépiping in through tinny speakers. It’s what a “Jazz Room” might be if it had been designed by white, male architects in their late-forties who had never heard of John Coltrane . . . or sex of any kind. Blaine’s first thought when Kurt pushes open the door is less horny and more . . . sad. Even the dirty walls feel like something out of a sanitarium.

He’s trying to think of something benign to say about this godforsaken room, when Kurt taps him on the shoulder and bursts out laughing.

“Oh my god!” Kurt backs away towards the desk, fists balled up happily in front of his face. “You should have seen yourself when we walked in. I thought you were going to turn and run!” He squats and rummages through the desk, shoulders still shaking.

“I almost did!” Blaine says, sinking into the relief like a warm bath. “Have you seen this room? Jazz? It looks like the mausoleum where jazz-lovers go to die.”

Kurt snorts. “It might be. I’ve never actually checked on its official use. All I know is that it has a heavy door, no charge, and an illustrious history with one of my colleagues on the last flight.” Kurt’s voice slows to a soft drawl and Blaine can already feel the sadness of the room disappearing in the sharp blue of Kurt’s eyes.

“Oh really? Which one? Blonde, not blonde, or the other guy?” Blaine walks to the chair closest to the door and leans down to touch the cushioned seat. Bouncy.

“Not blonde,” Kurt smiles, “and blonde, if you want to get technical. Santana had a bet going with one of the Delta flight attendants about who could make more ‘friends’ last March. Apparently it was Women’s History Month and they wanted to show their respects. Anyway, two weeks into the battle her competitor discovered this place, stocked it up, and the rest is sordid, disgusting history.”

“I see.” He watches, eyes wide, as Kurt pulls a piece of wood out from the desk drawer and skips over to shove it under the door. He gives it a kick for good measure. 

Oh my. “Will that hold?” As Kurt turns, Blaine sees the glint of condom wrappers in his other hand, and that doesn’t even bear contemplation.

“Do you mean the door?” Kurt flicks off the only light, casting the room in half shadows from the permanent fixture above the door. Then he walks slowly back into the room, hands (and their contents) tucked as far as they can go into the pockets of his tight, uniform pants. “If someone desperately wants to use the Jazz Room at the Salt Lake City airport? I actually don’t know. I have it on good authority that that doesn’t happen often. I suppose,” he says, casting his eyes down at the floor, “if someone really wanted to get in here, they could. In fact, someone could walk in at any moment without warning. Is that going to be a problem?”

He peeks up, hands still in his pockets, and Blaine forgets how to breathe. Never mind any latent exhibitionist tendencies, he’s pretty sure the entire Air National Guard could walk in right now and he wouldn’t go anywhere. Because right now, the most beautiful man he’s ever seen is staring at him like he’s the dessert round at the best restaurant in Manhattan.

Blaine shakes his head. “Oh no,” he breathes. “No problem.”

“Fantastic.”

With one hand, he reaches out for the center of Blaine’s chest. Kurt gently pushes him backwards, and Blaine falls.

As soon as the chair gives beneath his body, he feels a knee settle next to his own. When he looks up, Kurt’s hands lie on both side of his head, and he’s already half in Blaine’s lap, his lips only inches from Blaine’s nose. Kurt’s breath ghosts past his ear as he leads forward and whispers, “You with me?”

Blaine can’t answer. He can’t form words. Instead, he pushes himself out of the seat of the chair and finally closes the distance between their mouths.

When they kiss, he feels Kurt’s surprised smile at the edges, but then he opens his mouth and all Blaine can feel is pressure and the soft pulse of need. Kurt’s lips are just as soft as they looked from a distance, but Blaine couldn’t have anticipated the push and pull of two bodies that feel like they were made to dance. When he cocks his head one way, Kurt goes the other way, as though they’d been practicing for this moment at junior prom and in dark corners with pretty strangers. 

Blaine smiles as the thought of rehearsing for airport sex, and Kurt pulls back with a quizzical stare. “Did I do something funny? I have many powers, but my tongue doesn’t usually make men laugh.”

“No,” Blaine grins. “I was just thinking.” At some point, Kurt had climbed up on the chair and is now straddling his lap. There’s nothing funny about this situation.

“Oh, I see. Thinking.” Kurt scoots forward, just an inch, until he could squeeze Blaine’s hips with his thighs. Just when Blaine thinks that Kurt’s going to push back in for another kiss, he leans back, props his hands on Blaine’s knees, and looks up at the ceiling in mock contemplation. “We can’t have any of that going on, but what could we do to make sure that there is absolutely no thinking in this establishment?”

Blaine smirks and trails one around hand around Kurt’s waist. As it slides to the front, he lets it rest at Kurt’s open hip, running his thumb lazily over the meeting point of pelvis and thigh. “I have a few suggestions, but I wouldn’t want to continue my crime.”

“Mmmm, no.” Kurt hums and his eyes slip closed, as Blaine rubs against the inside of his thigh, each time pushing just a bit deeper. “Why, don’t you just show me, really quickly, and then maybe no one will find out.” 

“And he’s smart too,” Blaine smiles.

“Shut up.”

They lean back into the kiss on the same beat, and this time it isn’t the soft push and pull of exploration. It’s hard and sharp, each kiss landing like a blow. Kurt nips at Blaine’s lower lip, just enough to sting, and Blaine hears himself growl, low and rough, like something out of the books he read under the covers in high school. Apparently, this is who he is now, and damn if he isn’t going to be good at it. As Kurt noses down his neck, Blaine snakes the hand trailing along Kurt’s hip down between their bodies and presses his palm up against the hard line of heat throbbing through Kurt’s pants.

“OhmygodBlainekeepdoingthat.” Kurt voice jumps up a breathy octave and he curls in to mouth at Blaine’s neck. “You have no idea how many hours I’ve been waiting for you to do that.”

Blaine watches in awe as Kurt starts to thrust in shallow gasps, his body rolling each time Blaine pushes up and over his clothed cock. When Blaine’s thumb swipes over the head, Kurt breathes out a high keen that goes right to Blaine’s groin. It would be the most erotic sound of Blaine’s life if it weren’t being matched by the off-rhythm squeaks of the recliner every time he shifts his bodyweight. 

Blaine pulls back, just far enough from Kurt’s lips to get his bearings. “I promise I’m not thinking again, but do you know how much this chair can take?”

“No idea,” Kurt grins. “Santana never included the specs in her progress reports.” He dives back in, but Blaine holds back, confused. 

“Are you—” he tries. “I mean— have you never done this before?” 

“Why? Is that part of the fantasy for you? Do you want to imagine that you’re just my next conquest in a long line of available men?” Kurt wiggles on his lap and that’s really not fair. “I can play along with that if you like,” he shrugs, “but it honestly sounds exhausting.” Kurt smiles down at the space between their bodies, but Blaine reaches out and tilts his head up with one, careful finger. 

“No,” he says quietly, looking directly into Kurt’s wide, blue eyes. “That’s not part of the fantasy.” 

“Then what—” Kurt starts.

“You.” Blaine breathes. “You’re the fantasy, just you.”

For a minute, Kurt gulps in air, mouth agape. He takes in Blaine’s expression, like a collector reappraising a coin, and then he slides his hands down to softly cup Blaine’s face. When he speaks, his eyes shine in the borrowed light sneaking under the door. “I haven’t done this before,” he starts, firm as his hand along Blaine’s jaw. “I’ve never taken anyone in here, but you seemed-- special. And for the record,” he smiles, “You’re the fantasy too.”

It’s Blaine’s turn to grin as Kurt pulls him back into a kiss. Their hands reach together towards Blaine’s shirt and Kurt giggles as they try to undo one line of buttons with four hands. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. Definitely possible. When Blaine’s shirt lies open, Kurt moves towards his own, scooting back off of Blaine’s lap to tug the top out of where it’s tucked into his pants. As he stands, Blaine follows, holding up his hand when Kurt tries to push him back down. With both hands, he takes Kurt shoulders and guides him back towards the other chair, setting him down with a light tap.

“Please,” he says. “Let me do this,” and drops to his knees between Kurt’s parted legs.

“You sure?” Kurt stares down, eyes blown.

“Entirely,” he nods and pushes Kurt’s knees even farther apart, until he’s spread in a wide V around Blaine’s kneeling body. “You’re beautiful.” Blaine reaches up to tug at Kurt’s zipper and as he does, he leans in to nuzzle and mouth at Kurt’s clothed cock. From here, he could already kiss his way up its length. Perhaps he could make Kurt come without ever touching his skin, but where would be the fun in that?

Kurt whines out something like his name, and shoves a condom into Blaine’s waiting palm. With loose limbs, he tugs on his own pants until he can kick them off into a shadowed corner of the room. Now it’s just Blaine and Kurt’s boxer briefs, emblazoned with the union jack across the crotch. 

“Patriotic,” he smirks, shooting a glance up at Kurt’s face. Kurt tries to respond. He wants to respond, but he swallows the retort in moan, as Blaine pulls him out of his underwear and rubs his thumb along the vein. “See?” Blaine says, “so beautiful,” and he is, firm and throbbing in his hand. He unrolls the condom, slowly, and runs his hand up and down the length, just to see the head emerge from his fist.

“Blaine, please,” Kurt groans. “More pressure, I--”

“Yes, sir. Immediately, sir.” Blaine says, with an impish glance, and swallows Kurt down as far as he can go.

It isn’t far. Kurt’s thick on his tongue and Blaine’s never quite gotten the trick of a good deep throat, but he wraps his hand around the parts he can’t swallow, and Kurt groans like he’s coming apart with every pull.

As Blaine bobs his head and turns Kurt’s length in his fist, he closes his eyes and focuses on the sensation. It’s all—it’s too much at once, Kurt’s cock gliding and pulling along his lips, Kurt’s fingers tugging on the loose hair at the nape of his neck, Kurt’s knees bucking and stuttering out of his control when Blaine hollows out his cheeks and sucks as hard as his lungs will allow. He feels the shudder start in Kurt’s legs before it reaches his hand and before Kurt chokes out a plea. “Blaine. Blaine. Blaine,” he keens. “God, please keep your hand— just like—” and then Kurt falls apart. He shudders once and again as Blaine carries him through, his mouth open and his eyes painfully vulnerable. As Blaine looks up into his wrecked and gasping face, Kurt looks like a boy who’s just discovered how much his own body can feel in one jaw-dropping moment.

Kurt’s still gasping, starry eyed, when he looks down and catches Blaine staring. “Your turn,” he whispers, and when Blaine stands he realizes he’s almost come in his clothing. Kurt thumbs at the wet spot spreading across the front of his pants and Blaine scrambles to take them off.

He yanks at the zipper, and it won’t play along. He doesn’t remember his pants ever being this difficult, but right now he wouldn’t trust himself to operate children’s toys.

Kurt slides off of the chair to land at his feet as Blaine finally yanks off his own pants and underwear, damp with pre-come and sweat. Kurt’s condom must have come off somehow and gone somewhere; right now, he can’t bring himself to care about any of it. When Blaine squeezes the base of his cock to hold back for just a minute more, Kurt licks his lips, and Blaine just about faints dead away. 

“You didn’t leave much for me to do, naughty boy” Kurt pouts and grins when Blaine whimpers. “I know. I know,” he says, reaching up to unroll a condom with the softest, lightest hands. “I’m sure that was mostly my fault, but you can’t blame me for being a little _competitive_.”

Without warning, he leans in to lick a stripe up the underside of Blaine’s cock from his balls to his red, swollen head, and Blaine is gone. The image of his cock next to that perfect wet mouth and those unreserved eyes . . . god, it’s everything and nothing like the fantasy. As Kurt leans back to look up, Blaine knows exactly which of the two has him stuttering and bucking into Kurt’s fist. A fantasy won’t make you cry, but maybe, Blaine thinks, maybe he wants to cry.

Maybe he just wants to feel like this forever. 

For Blaine, it feels like years before he finally stops shaking and he can hear something beyond his own heartbeat. When Kurt reaches a hand up, Blaine allows himself to be tugged down to the ground and into Kurt’s open arms. They don’t lie down, so much as lean against the closest chair, half on top of one another, and slowly allow the real world to creep back around the margins.

Outside of the door, beyond Kurt’s rising and falling breath, Blaine hears distant voices, travelers and the drone of the Federal Aviation Administration’s warnings about unattended baggage. Someone could walk in, but they won’t. Blaine knows this like he knows his own middle name. They can’t be touched here, but that doesn’t mean they can stay.

He isn’t sure who pulls away first. They both reach for their own clothing and in the separation, something precious breaks. As he zips up his pants, Blaine looks up and finds that Kurt is ten years older again. He’s put on his flight attendant persona with the suit, and it would be incredible if Blaine didn’t want to hold out his hands and just make it stop. He can’t exactly pinpoint the difference. It might be Kurt’s stance or a sharpness behind his eyes, but in a glance Blaine knows that Kurt’s out of his reach.

“I—” Kurt starts and stops again, like an old man at a four-way stop. “I had a wonderful time.”

“Me too,” Blaine says, too quickly, before he can stop himself. He scoops his socks off of the floor and sits back in what he’s now thinking of as “Chair Number One” to put them back on.

“I’ll think of you when I go through Salt Lake City,” Kurt says, like a question.

“Me too.” Blaine shrugs, and they both breathe into the silence. 

“If I ever get that big break—”

“You don’t have to say that,” Blaine cuts him off, more sharply than he might have liked, but he can’t un-see Kurt’s relief. “You don’t have to say anything.” He looks down to focus on his socks, and suddenly feels a soft set of lips press into his forehead.

“I know.” Kurt brushes Blaine’s forehead, as though trying to wipe away his own kiss. “I know.”

And he’s gone. The door creaks open, the lights flicker on, and when Blaine slips into his shoes it’s under a bright and unforgiving fluorescent hum.

***********

That’s him.

The first thing Blaine sees is a flash of hair, sculpted towards the sky. It’s the same swoop he remembers from across the first class cabin. He’d remember it anywhere, and thank goodness for that. Otherwise, Kurt would have just been one more uniformed body among the dozens Blaine’s already seen pass through this set of automatic doors.

He’s been watching and drinking coffee for almost an hour when he finally sees a familiar face in the crowd outside of the entrance to JFK. If he’s honest with himself, he doesn’t even know if it was worth it. Sure, he might have the right information, but that doesn’t mean a damn thing if Kurt tells him to leave or, worse yet, if he never even stops walking. 

The thought of Kurt just marching by, as if Blaine isn’t even worth the energy of rejection, makes him want to throw up behind the pay phones, but at least now he can breathe. For three weeks, he’s been dizzy and it took him that long to realize why. Tina thinks they’re panic attacks, little ones like people get in the movies when they see their attackers on the street. Blaine makes faces at the comparison— nothing about that day in the airport could be described as traumatic— but she might have a point about the panic. Every time he thinks about the fact that he might not see Kurt again, ever, he gets a little light headed, and recently he’s been thinking about it a lot.

It’s really Tina’s fault that he’s here. She finally gave him an ultimatum: talk to Kurt or hire a therapist because “One of these days,” she said, “you’re going to want your brain back.” She said it like it was that simple, as if he hadn’t been coming up with possible scenarios and strategies every night for the past week. Every single one ended in Kurt either rolling his eyes or calling the cops, but at least he’d have some closure.

“Closure,” Blaine laughs under his breath. That’s the word he’d used when he left home for the airport, but now it doesn’t seem like nearly enough of a reason to be standing outside of JFK in an unexpected chill. It sounded like such a good idea this morning, but now Kurt’s looking at him in stunned surprise, and Blaine wants to dig himself a hole to New Mexico.

“Welcome home,” Blaine says as Kurt walks over, and it comes out more breathy than confident. He wants to be suave and cool, like Bogart or Bacall, but right now he just feels scared.

Kurt cocks his head and leans on his roller bag, considering him with a wary eye. His hair is the same, and the delicate way that he wraps his hands around the handle of his bag. He also looks tired in the dark shadows around his eyes. Blaine wants to touch his hand, to see if he can transfer energy by osmosis. If anything, Blaine has energy to spare, but he holds back. Somehow the two feet between their bodies feels like an ocean.

“Is there any chance this is a coincidence?” Kurt laughs, but it doesn’t sound like a question. Blaine looks at his shoes. “Right,” Kurt nods. “That did seem unlikely.”

Blaine peeks up from the ground, a half smile playing on his lips. “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world—” But Kurt cuts him off. 

“Blaine,” he sighs. “What do you want?” His voice sounds as exhausted as his eyes.

“I don’t know,” and he doesn’t, not really. “I was thinking dinner, but I’m not sure what time zone you’re on. Breakfast works just as well. I know a place about ten minutes away that does a mean scramble.”

“A scramble?” Kurt says the word in disbelief, like Blaine’s just offered him AK47. “Blaine, what are you doing? I thought we were on the same page when— when I last saw you. I couldn’t have said one-night stand any more times if I’d tried.” His voice drops into a half whisper as a woman rolls by with a double stroller, and Blaine chokes back laughter.

“I thought it might be worth renegotiating the terms of our fling,” he shrugs as Kurt’s eyes narrow. “We never called it a one-night stand, not in so many words. A wise man once told me that words are important; naming is important, and we never actually decided what we should call _us_.” Blaine pauses on the last word and watches as Kurt’s eyes slowly widen. “We could still be anything, Kurt. We could be a fling, or a booty call, or maybe something more. No matter what, I am absolutely certain that I want to know.” He presses his palms together, and wills himself to just keep talking. “If you want me to go, I’ll go and you never have to see me again, but I don’t think I can figure this out on my own.”

Blaine’s hands drop to his sides, just as Kurt’s cross over his chest, and both of their eyes drop to the pavement. For one long, tense minute, Blaine is certain that Kurt is going to turn and walk away. It was too much, with the bombastic speech. Or maybe it wasn’t enough. Blaine can never tell. Maybe if he’d shown up with a marching band or just sent a note, Kurt would still walk away because he isn’t interested in defining a relationship with a man he doesn’t want to know. Blaine starts to apologize and leave—dammit he will not cry in front of an airport—when he hears something.

Kurt’s laughing. It’s more of a snort, really, but he’s smiling and he isn’t going anywhere.

“Words have meaning, hmm?” he says, still looking at the ground. “My dad’s going like that one.”

“What?”

Kurt ignores his confusion and barrels on, like he’s talking to himself. “I don’t have a life, you know. When I’m not on the stage or sleeping or at auditions, I’m probably on a plane heading to another time zone.”

“What do you think I do here?” Blaine asks. “Okay, the time zones are mostly you, but I audition and I see friends and I sometimes sleep, not so much recently, but I do.” 

“I’m always cranky at home because I have to be perky at work and, Blaine—” Kurt breaks off, biting his lip. “I don’t want to turn someone like you, someone nice and sweet, into my emotional punching bag, because I’m not capable of anything else. I’m not always going to have this job and be this person, but for right now . . . I don’t know if I can do this.”

Kurt looks up, right into Blaine’s eyes and he looks so, incredibly alone. In the dark circles under Kurt’s eyes, Blaine sees a man running on fumes and sheer, unmitigated determination. He’ll make it. Blaine knows it. He might not know Kurt’s favorite food or where he grew up, but he knows that this man is going to get everything he wants because he will insist, and the world will fall at his feet. Now he just needs Kurt to believe it too.

“That’s okay,” Blaine hears himself say. “I figured I had to either ask you out or sing that song about one-night stands until you were too embarrassed to leave me alone on the sidewalk.”

“That’s quite a game plan you had there.” 

“I am the master of subtlety,” Blaine smirks. “Would that have worked better?”

“Maybe,” Kurt grins, and Blaine feels the joy on his skin like sunshine. He could power a city with that smile.

“Well, I could still give it a shot.” Blaine shrugs off his jacket, dumps it on top of Kurt’s suitcase, and faces his audience of one. “Ladies and gentleman, I would like to present _Stay With Me_ , by the masterful Sam Smith.”

“Are you serious?” Kurt hisses.

“ _Guess it’s true, I’m not good at a one-night stand_ ,” Blaine sings, just loud enough for the gate attendant to turn in surprise and for Kurt to turn the color of ripe, red tomatoes. “ _But I still need love ‘cause I’m just a man_.”

He wiggles his eyebrows and Kurt smacks him on the shoulder. “Stop it, you idiot!” The slap stings, but Kurt’s giggling through clenched teeth. “I promise I won’t go anywhere, but just stop singing!”

Blaine stops with an innocent pout. “But don’t you want to hear the part about holding hands?”

“Maybe next time, loverboy.” Kurt rolls his eyes and Blaine almost squeals out loud. Next time. He said next time. “If we’re going to get something to eat, then I insist that we go some place I know, because I’ve been eating airport food for the last four days, and my body has forgotten how to recognize vegetables. Also,” he raises a finger as Blaine tries to speak. “I have no idea what meal it’s going to be. After this many trips, my stomach can’t tell if it’s supposed to be craving lunch or third dinner.”

“Third dinner?” 

“Don’t ask.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Blaine says, reaching for Kurt’s roller bag. He tugs it towards a waiting cab, as Kurt falls into step one beat behind. “A man’s dinners are his business. Besides, if we get the meal wrong we can always try again.” He drops his free hand to his side until Kurt’s thumb and forefinger just swipe against his own.

“Next time?” Kurt smiles. 

“Exactly.”

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, I adore my betas gluttonouspenguin, foramomentonly, amongsoulsandshadows
> 
> Thanks also to allthesass for creating Kurt's note and the title art on the tumblr post. Go check it out!
> 
> This fic was partially inspired by the following (amazing) video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9Fcndt2aOc
> 
> Finally, thanks to the anon who kindly informed me that Southwest Airlines doesn't have a First Class cabin! Oops? I appreciate you suspension of disbelief.


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